emotional development and temperament

Question 1

affect

Answer 1

outward expression of emotions

Question 2

can/do babies interpret and experience emotion

Answer 2

researchers asked mothers if their baby experiences emotion, almost all say their baby can

weaknesses
- interpretation bias from parents
- mothers can claim their baby looks happy but how can we tell if they are actually feeling happiness

Question 3

physiological methods to measuring babies emotion

Answer 3

-skin conductance for arousal

Question 4

which emotions in infants are we better at interpreting

Answer 4

positive emotions
-fear and anger often get confused

Question 5

what are primary emotions

Answer 5

basic emotions present at birth e.g contentment, interest, disgust, distress
4-8 weeks: true smile (social) from pleasure
2-7 months: anger, sadness, joy, surprise, fear
(biological influence: invariant sequence of emergence across cultures)

Question 6

what are secondary emotions

Answer 6

complex emotions form around second yr+
-embarrassment, guilt, shame, envy, pride
-parental influence e.g if parents are particularly expressive of pride for example
-when children first learn these emotions they only express them in the presence of adults
-less biological underpinning

Question 7

understanding emotions

Answer 7

-heavily linked to language: when children speak about emotion we have a greater understanding of their emotional knowledge

Question 8

when do children start using emotional words

Answer 8

-around 18 months
-increases greatly in 3rd year
(children may simply learn scripts for how to behave/react)

Question 9

when are emotional conflicts understood (mixed emotions)

Answer 9

Harris 1983
-at age 6+

Question 10

what are emotional display rules

Answer 10

culturally defined rules about when and where to express emotions
-they are learnt rules that change over time
-hard for children to learn these rules

Question 11

how do children learn emotional display rules

Answer 11

through our parents, social training: adults respond selectively to babies emotional displays
-social training is culture specific

Question 12

what is social training

Answer 12

socially acceptable emotional displays shaped from early childhood
-3 yr olds have limited abilities to hide their true feelings
-as children get older they become better at lying/masking

Question 13

what is key to following emotional display rules

Answer 13

emotional self regulation and ability to lie/ mask emotions

Question 14

Dans 1995 theory about emotional display rules

Answer 14

females are generally faster at learning these rules and being able to regulate emotions

Question 15

what are the strategies babies and children use to regulate emotions

Answer 15

-6 month: turn away from aversive stimuli
-1 yr: rocking, moving away, chewing on objects
-toddlers: distract themselves
-2-6 yrs: parental guidance and verbal help that becomes internalised

Question 16

recognition and interpretation of emotion at different ages

Answer 16

-first month: babies can discriminate between adult facial expressions of primary emotions
-2-3 months: babies smile at human faces more than inanimate objects (Nelson et al 2006)
-first yr: infants able to recognise emotional changes in adult expression

Question 17

what is social referencing

Answer 17

looking to others to see how they react to a new environment/object to guide your experience
-7-10 months: look to adults of uncertain
-toddlers + older children: adults initiate conversations about emotions
(children show more developed emotional understanding/secondary emotions if brought up by parents that discuss emotions with them

Question 18

what did Fabes et al 2001 find

Answer 18

nursery children who use emotion related words are more popular

Question 19

recognition and interpretation tests

Answer 19

infants and young children expect adults to synchronise emotions and are sensitive to emotions e.g still face experiment

Question 20

what is temperament

Answer 20

tendency to respond in a certain way across situations (precurser of personality)

Question 21

what are the five major attributes in babies

Answer 21

activity level, irritability, soothability, fearfulness, sociability

Question 22

theories of temperament and stability

Answer 22

Caspi and Silva 1995: activity level, irritability, sociability and shyness are moderately stable from infancy to adolescence

Kagan 1992: behavioural inhibition (dislike of unfamiliar) is stable from early infancy to school age +

Question 23

temperamental profiles thomas and chess 1977

Answer 23

-40% babies fall in easy profile (predictable pattern of eating + sleeping)
-10% fall into difficult (unpredictable patterns)
-15% slow to warm up (slow to find routine)

Question 24

what are temperamental profiles dependent on

Answer 24

child rearing practices
-persistence of temperamental traits is dependent on child rearing practices